'I only did it to save my mate'

EARLY in the battle Corporal Dan Keighran was high on a hillside poking his head over the ridge, looking for enemy fire. An Afghan soldier, part of an RPG team, was beside him.

The Afghans are willing soldiers, brave as a bull run, but their instincts are poor.

With no interpreter available, communication on the battlefield was through hand gestures.

When the battle first began some of the Afghans seemed lost. They weren't hiding; just unsure what to do, until the Australians dragged them forward.

High on the hill Cpl Keighran now had 10 or so Afghans with him, pushed up by Cpl Lukas Woolley.

Then he spotted enemy insurgents in an aqueduct, in front of a building. It was a perfect target for a rocket-propelled grenade.

Cpl Keighran needed to point out the exact target to the Afghan soldier with the RPG launcher, so the Australian stood and fired a volley of tracer rounds, their phosphorous tips streaking the air as the rounds punched into the aqueduct.

The Afghan nodded.

And then missed.

So Cpl Keighran ducked down behind the ridge and laid out some stones on the ground to show the Afghan - who did not speak English - exactly what he was trying to illustrate. He placed a stone to signify the aqueduct, then another where the Afghan actually hit, signifying that was no good. Set your sights on the first stone, he indicated with sign language.

It was painstaking work.

The Afghan seemed to get it.

He nodded and went over the ridge again, blowing the aqueduct sky high and turning every insurgent in it into red mist.

"RPG good," the Afghan said as he returned to his position.

This was among the first of Cpl Keighran's many victories that day - a day that saw him awarded the Victoria Cross.

When the coalition force of 20 Australian soldiers and 20 Afghan National Army soldiers was ambushed, just minutes before, Cpl Keighran had shown courage above and beyond. He left his position of cover to head up a hill, deliberately exposing himself on higher ground so he could identify the enemy position and direct his troops' fire down below. He also established a fire-target for the four light-armoured vehicles about 1.5km to the west, armed with a .50 calibre machine gun, two 25mm Bushmaster chain guns, a 7.62mm machine gun and an 84mm recoilless rifle.

By now, Cpl Keighran had exposed himself countless times to enemy fire. He repeatedly and deliberately broke cover to smoke out enemy forces and draw their fire to himself, in order to spot their muzzle flashes so he could call in the big guns.

Three times Cpl Keighran ran back and forth across the hilltop to draw fire, and when the Australians fired at the muzzle flashes and response quietened from the three enemy positions, the battle turned. But about 45 minutes into the battle, it all went bad.

The men called Lance-Corporal Jared MacKinney "Crash". He was shot

within five minutes of joining the battle.

"We've taken a casualty," Cpl Keighran said. "I've been up there an hour and haven't been shot. Just bloody lucky."

When Lance-Cpl MacKinney was hit, medics went to work to save his life. They called in a "nine-liner", meaning a casualty evacuation request by helicopter.

"Gunshot upper left arm."

From down below Cpl Woolley and Sapper Joel Toms, with two other soldiers, headed to Lance-Cpl MacKinney, lower down on the hill where Cpl Keighran was working.

"We headed up this aqueduct, hearing the boys up in the hill, hearing the rounds coming in over head," Cpl Woolley said, "and we came round the corner and look up on the hill, see Dan the man running across, directing troops and what-not, finding out what the situation was."

With a helicopter coming, Cpl Keighran co-ordinated his men on the hilltop, making them lay down as much fire as they could to suppress the enemy. He then left his cover and came down the hill, drawing fire once more, to assist those working on Lance-Cpl MacKinney. "When I caught up with Jared the entire team was copping it hard," Spr Toms said.

A sniper told those working on Lance-Cpl MacKinney to get down, as there was too much heat.

"He's just heard it and drawn fire off us," Cpl Woolley said. "I just stood up," Cpl Keighran said, "and I've moved across deliberately, in plain view, for everyone on the battlefield to see."

A landing zone was found 600m away, in a courtyard between buildings.

Cpl Keighran ran the 600m to help clear the buildings, drawing fire most of the way, away from those working on Lance-Cpl MacKinney.

"I saw one dash he done," Spr Toms said. "He took a lot of heat off us."

Lance-Cpl MacKinney was dead, of course. They knew it when they were working on him and they knew it when they loaded him on the Blackhawk, but they weren't going to give up on him.

The Australians would fight another 2 1/2 hours, Dutch pilots in Apache helicopters would come in and shoot themselves dry, helping turn the battle for good, and before they turned back up to 90 insurgents were killed.

Cpl Keighran left the army a year later to take a job in the mines at Kalgoorlie.

He didn't talk about the battle when he returned home. He did not tell his wife Kathryn what had happened.

Just a few weeks ago he came out of the ground for his break and saw he had missed a call from Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison. He was asked to get to Kalgoorlie airport that afternoon because Lt-Gen Morrison was flying in.

"What have you done, Dan?" his foreman asked.

Cpl Keighran grabbed Kathryn and met Lt-Gen Morrison at the airport, where the general gave him a letter.

"I want you to read this by yourself," he said.

He had won the Victoria Cross. Kathryn read the letter and, at first, struggled to talk. "Now you need to tell me the full story," she finally said.